Day 12 Glencoe to Inverness 83 miles

Two words...rain and midges!  Holy moly, we couldn't get going quick enough this morning!! These are the two main reasons I now live on the north east coast of Scotland and not the west, not much rain and no midges!

The Pap of Glencoe

Anyway, after stocking up with Tangfastics at the Glencoe supermarket we got our journey underway to Inverness, it was a bit of a soggy morning with a lot of low cloud so it was heads down and get some speed up time!  We arrived in Fort William in about 50 minutes just as the sun came out and multiple rainbows started to appear.  Our little peloton however needed a loo stop, so as Morrisons came into view it looked like a good idea. (See additional footnote).

The Morrisons sign was a bit high up!

Ben Nevis

We carried on through Fort William stopping to look at what we could see of Ben Nevis, then took a back road which ran alongside the Caledonian Canal round to the Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge. 

We rejoined the A82 there and continued towards Fort Augustus.  Nigel (Peak Tours) had a lovely layby tea stop for us at around 35 miles which was well appreciated.  As we got down to the business of getting to lunch, Rachel and me started practising our time trialling techniques and got some very fast miles under our belt as we rode into Fort Augustus.

And here is where Nessie joined Ruby and myself for the rest of the journey.  Ruby is now adorned with chicken feathers, a seagull feather, heather and now Nessie.

Uphill time trial time! The Peak Tour guys mentioned yesterday that the climb out of Fort Augustus was long and tough and they often used it as a friendly King of the Mountains, the idea being that we timed it ourselves and were totally honest.  So we did...Rachel got 34 mins (K of the M) I got 40 mins, the standing female record was 42 mins...happy much!

We had a great descent and then started to make our way round to Loch Ness on the upper road. When we topped the hill over looking the north end of the loch it was incredible, the view was out of this world.  This was also when I discovered the easy panorama button on my camera!

After a good stop for photos we descended into Inverness stopping for a Scottish Half Pint before finding our B and B's

Enjoying some apres...

One of the best days for stunning views definitely helped by the sun and blue skies.  A fanatstic day's riding!

Weather - rain, drizzle, rain, downpour, drizzle, sun, rain, sun, sun and more sun (west coast weather at its best!)

Random toilet stops - Morrisons supermarket (today), In the Garden Hilton in Glasgow (yesterday)  Abington M-way services (2 days ago), In a field that a bus drove through (last week)

Chicken - coping ok, but cut even more holes in his suit as it was soooo hot today!